Wednesday, August 31, 2011

As the son of Noel Lee, the founder of Monster Cable Products, Kevin Lee grew up around audio gear. The younger Mr. Lee is now branching off into his own business, SOL Republic, and drops by the podcast to discuss his new companyâs line of headphones â" and what elements go into creating a good audio experience for the listener in the first place.

When it comes to collecting and managing a digital music collection on the computer, software for Windows and Mac OS X get most of the attention. These two systems are not the only options, however, as Cristian Parrino of Canonical explains. As the vice president of online services for the company that created Ubuntu Linux, Mr. Parrino outlines the music software that comes with this popular free Linux distribution and also discusses the Ubuntu One personal cloud service and smartphone apps.

The resignation of Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, took many people by surprise last week. Sam Grobart, the personal technology editor, reflects on the highlights of Mr. Jobsâs career. The news of the week also includes an update on the fate of the H.P. TouchPad and a new survey from the Pew Research Center about social-network use. This episodeâs Tip of the Week highlights one of the lesser-known functions of iPods and other portable devices: built-in timekeepers that often include stopwatch, timer and world-clock functions.

To find out more about the show and links to topics that were discussed, go to the technology/techtalk.html">Tech Talk page.